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"At the moment, there is no one within big companies who gets in trouble when they buy a startup for $200 million that they could have bought earlier for $20 mi
by brianwc 19y ago
"At the moment, there is no one within big companies who gets in trouble when they buy a startup for $200 million that they could have bought earlier for $20 million. There should start to be someone who gets in trouble for that."
I think it's right that startups will be acquired earlier and earlier, but that makes me wonder: might those earlier acquisitions (which sometimes decrease productivity to 1/13th what it was) sabotage the success of the startup either because once acquired the founders don't have to work as hard to keep their heads above water or because when not constrained by a tiny startup budget the founders won't worry as much about finding efficient ways to do things--which in the past made them better startups/companies?
- pg 19y agoI wondered if anyone would bring that up. I think another thing that will happen is that acquirers will figure out how not to ruin the startups they buy. A company that bought a bunch of hot startups early on and didn't destroy their productivity would be a force to reckon with.
- jkush 19y agoIt seems the act of acquiring does a lot of damage all by itself. One thing that would probably go a long way would be if the acquiring company kept the acquisition process short, sweet and easy.